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Emergency Marburg treatment succeeds in test

A VACCINE has been tested that could prevent the deadly Marburg virus from causing disease. The virus, like its cousin Ebola, causes a haemorrhagic disease. Though outbreaks are rare, combating Marburg virus is a high priority, partly because each outbreak gives it chances to adapt to spread more readily between humans.

Tom Geisbert at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland and colleagues infected macaque monkeys with Marburg virus and half an hour later gave them a vaccine known to prevent disease if given to macaques before infection. It contained a different, weakened virus carrying the …